To delve into the history of Syriac music is to delve into the history of the Syriac church, the tragic displacement of Syriacs and Assyrians* at the start of the 20th century and the role that tapes played in disseminating their music in an age of analogue. Constant movement and displacement accompanied the destinies of its artists, whose steady migration from Syria and the Levant resulted in dwindling numbers of a historic minority that has been an integral part of the cultural and social fabric of the SWANA region. One reason Syriac (and Assyrian, more on that below) music became popularized was thanks to the efforts of music pioneers like Gabriel Asaad, Nuri Iskandar, George Chachan and Pol Mikhael and many others, who took the music from the confines of the church, onto the wedding and community halls to make it accessible through the daily and the spiritual at once, while also utilizing the cassette to spread the songs further. All composers are said to attribute the origins of modern compositions to pre-Christian music which was preserved through church hymns (Zeitoune, 2015, 17). The legacy of Syriac/Assyrian music lives on through the popularization for Syriac/Assyrian music and, especially through the tapes that were recorded from the 1960’s onwards. Before delving deeper into the music, a clear definition of the terms “Syriac” and “Assyrian” is called for. Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, with historic connections to Mesopotamia. Depending on whom you speak to, some terms used are Assyrian, Ashury, Suryani and Assyro-Chaldean with different historical angles referencing the correlating civilization, but also denomination (Jarjour, T.,36). In his book “Modern Assyrian Music” Abboud Zeitoune uses the term Assyrian as an overarching term that includes all the different denominations. For the purposes of this essay, the terms Syriac and Assyrian will be used interchangeably, depending on the way each interviewee references themselves and the musicians they are talking about, based on their own experiences. While Syriacs have historically present been in the Levant, those in urban centres like Damascus, Homs and Aleppo are natives to Syria, whereas Syriacs who arrived in Syria in the early 20th century came from Urfalla (Urfa), Diyarbakir, Mardin, Tur Abdin, Ninaveh/Mosul and settled in north-east Syria, or what is known as Jazeera who were all part of the Assyrian empire (21st to 14th century BC). Beginnings of The Modern Syriac Song Within the Orthodox Syriac heritage all documents and interviewees seem to assert that until the early 20th century “There was no singing for love or joy” as Abboud Zeitoune puts it; “There was only the church, and the church had a rich heritage, around 700 notated melodies” which the late Syriac musicologist Nuri Iskandar notated. This awakening happened at the end of the19th and at the start of the 20the centuries as a reaction to rising nationalism within the SWANA region, but also because of the so called “Seyfo” (meaning sword) or the Assyrian genocide, when masses of Assyrian/Syriac Christians were deported from southeastern Anatolia and Persia’s Azerbaijan province by the Ottoman forces, with the help of some Kurdish tribes. The writings and works of thinkers like Naum Faiq (1868-1930) and Ashur Yusef (1858-1915) were instrumental in building the Assyrian/Syriac identity through the lens of nationalism and the former’s poems went on to form the basis for modern Assyrian compositions. Central to the musical works is one foundational book; the Beth Gazo or مستودع الألحان (The Treasury of Chants of The Syriac Orthodox church) which is said to hold songs and compositions from the founding of the Syriac Antiochian Church in the 1st century AD until 12th century AD when the addition of any melodies was closed (Gabriel, A. p. 4). One of the main figures in advancing the Syriac music was a musician called Gabriel Asaad, who appears to have come from the famous Syriac orphanage Beth yatme d Othuroye b Qiliqiya in Adana, where he learned the music of the Beth Gazo. Dubbed “The father of modern Assyrian music” Gabriel Asaad was a great lover of music, who settled in Qamishli, before moving to Palestine, Syria and Lebanon to deepen his musical knowledge. Dr. Owais Asaad, the great-nephew of Gabriel Asaad who is still based in Qamishli tells me over the phone that “Gabriel was like my grandfather, he loved music, and in pursuit of music he moved between cities. But it wasn’t easy for him, as society did not appreciate musicianship as a profession”. Gabriel is said to have recorded two of his initial songs “Ho doṇho shemsho” and “Oth kmo rom at b cayn” in Palestine in 1933, but no copies have been found (Zeitoune, 2017, 31). His musical teachings according to Zeitoune would inspire another group of young men to further improvise the Syriac musical heritage. Those included the likes of George Chachan, Jan Karat, Joseph Malke and others who were all active in Qamishli. The Birth of The Syriac Cassette and the Cultural Movement in Qamishli “Qamishli is a fairly modern city” explains Owais Asaad; “It only dates back to the start of the 20th century, and it’s thanks to the Syriacs, Armenians and Kurds that it has developed and thrived”. The administrative capital of the Qamishli District in Al-Hasakah Governorate, the city was a majority Assyrian city and a haven for Assyrians escaping the Ottoman genocide from Turkey, Iraq and Armenia. Residing under the French protectorate at the time, Shukri Charmukli founded a sports club titled Nadi Al-Rafidayn (Bethnahrin Association) cca. 1946 which formed a focal point for socialising and enabled the congregation of “scouts” (كشاف ) who went on to start the first music band led by musician Pol Mikhael in 1950. While speaking to Abboud Zeitoune he tells me of the need the Syriacs felt to have their own celebratory songs, as “They had to hire Kurdish, Turkish or Armenian musicians to play at their weddings who would each sing in their respective languages”. This need led musicians Joseph Malke, and George Chachan to compose Syriac folk songs with fellow musicians, following the lead of Dr. Abrohom Lahdo and Pol Mikhael who were amongst the first to compose modern syriac folk songs. Their conditions were according to Zeitoune that “The language used to write the lyrics had to stem from the Syriac spoken dialect and not the liturgical language. The group; the young generation of the Assyrian Democratic Organization which was founded in 1957, also agreed that the songs would be about love and life and that the rhythm and melody had to move the listener”. These circumstances led the musicians in Qamishli to come together, and various socio-historical moments culminated in the meeting between Syriac poet Danho Daho who had written a poem titled “Kmisawri L quli” and musician Pol Mikhael who composed the music for it and led to the birth of the first Assyrian folk song in 1968, as Zeitoune recalls. The breakthrough of dissemination came when it was recorded on reel-to-reel and circulated amongst people. When asked how they found out about music at the time, Oweis Asaad tells me that it would all be through oral transmission, where one person would tell the next. There were no recording studios, but Qamishli had one cassette shop which opened in the early 1970s called Al-Kindi studio; “The shops would be called “studio” but that didn’t mean that they had studios. It was just a cassette shop, where they would copy and sell cassettes. This is where we would find out about music. Whenever a new cassette arrived at the shop, the shop owners would play it loud, so that those passing by could hear. If they liked it, they would buy it.” Owais elaborates further saying that “When cars became more popular, you would hear the music playing loudly from cars passing through the streets, and they would find out about new music”. It was only during the 1960s that music recording started to happen independently of global recording companies thanks to the popularity of reel-to-reel and cassette recorders. “Recording studios and recording materials are a recent occurrence, and the recording studios were not professional” adds Asaad. Delving deeper into the distribution of cassettes at the time, Owais says that there would be social celebrations like Mother’s Day or the Assyrian New Year on the 1st of April and those would be occasions to play the latest releases. When Syriacs started migrating from Syria they would “Each take the tapes with them to Germany, Sweden, America, Australia or wherever they were and that would contribute to the popularization of those songs” he notes. Zeitoune points out the importance of the Assyrian Democratic Organisation, which was founded in 1957, and which played a big role in galvanizing the cultural scene to further develop the Syriac/Assyrian folk song. Utilizing the work, lyrics and compositions of Abrohom Lahdo, Ninos Aho and Gabriel Ada, an unsuccessful attempt to carry out a recording in a soundproof house took place in 1967. It wasn’t until summer 1968 the hit “Shamo Mar” sung by Habib Mousa, recorded in the house of Gawriye (Saliba) Hanna, under the supervision of sound engineers Elias and Isa who ran Al-Kindi studio, that the Assyrian folk song became popularised in Syria. That said, it is important to mention the influence of the Assyrian and Syriac communities and their ties across the borders, mainly between Syria and Iraq. In my interview with Abboud Zeitoune, he mentions the influences of the Iraqi Assyrian singer, composer Albert Ruel Tamras (1944-2011) whose music and songs were further disseminated by the Assyrian Radio and TV in Baghdad and Kirkuk in the 1970s. Albert recorded 13 songs around the year 1966 in the family-run recording studio of Assyrian musician Jamil Bashir, in Baghdad, Iraq. The songs which were released on 45 rpm single vinyl on Bashirphone label (formerly known as Ashtarphone) were an inspiration for the Qamishli and other Syria based Syriac and Assyrian communities to create their own music and songs. Throughout this search for the birth, evolution and dissemination of the Assyrian modern songs, I am surprised by the lack of mention of women. This makes me ask: “What did mothers sing to their children? Were there no nursery rhymes or lullabies in Syriac?” To that question Owais responds “My mother, Sehan Asaad, recorded two songs, written by poet Danho Dahho and composed by George Chachan in the 1970s. She told me about the recording, and said that they went to a remote house that was built from clay, as those old houses would isolate sound better. She described to me how Chachan asked her, and the musicians to each stand at a different corner, while carefully positioning the microphones to enable optimum recording. We didn’t have sound engineers, and we didn’t have enough recording equipment, but in larger cities like Aleppo there were studios”. Zeitoune’s answer to the same question is slightly different; “Before 1916 everything was in Turkish, or Kurdish. There is a story of a Syriac bishop [This was Monk Yuhanon Dolabani who later became Bishop of Mardin] who was said to have seen a Syriac mother signing to her baby in Kurdish. He was moved by the scene and decided to write a song for mothers to sing to their children”. He elaborates further; “Georgette Arslan Kababe sang a Syriac lullaby for children”. The song was released on vinyl in 1974 by Izla-Fon, Gabriel Asaad’s own label, named after the music and dance group Izla which was active in the Qamishli at the time. Composed by Gabriel Asaad, the lyrics were written by Philoxenos Yuhanon Dolabani. Zeitoune explains that there are songs for the harvest season. Famous Assyrian singer Juliana Jendo sang one of those songs on her “Wardeh Deesheh” album and the song is said to have been around for five hundred years. He also adds that in the eastern Assyrian music repertoire the oldest found vinyl from 1917 includes the voices of husband and wife Yousef and Anna Yonan (born in 1893 and 1897 in Urmia/Iran respectively). This absence of songs from and for mothers, women and children, confuses me, and makes me wonder about the traumatic, violent and repressive effects of the Sayfo on the memories and cultural heritage of people who have survived them. Or is it the sheer fact that Syriac has survived as a liturgical language mostly practiced by male clerics that has meant there is a gap when it comes to women’s heritage? The patriarchal nature of the recorded music industry no doubt played its role in the output of cultural production. If we look closer though, there were women who influenced the Assyrian cultural production, and one of those women was the iconic Juliana Jendo. The Case-ette of Juliana Jendo There is no doubt that further research is needed to understand the influence and role of Assyrian and Syriac women in the music of the community. In an interview with Gabriel Aydin on the music of the Syriac community in Tur Abdin, I was told that there were choirs where women and men both sang together. The testimonies of Owais Asaad regarding his mother’s recording in the 1970’s and the recording of Georgette Arslan Kababe (of whom very little is known) indicate that there must have been some heritage of women’s songs. I remember hearing the unforgettable voice of Malfonitho Evlin Dawud (1935- 2003) on a cassette at a Palestinian-Syrian friend’s house in Paris in 2022. Besides private cassette collections, some recordings of her voice also survive on tape recording from the 1970s and online. Evlin was considered the first Syriac woman to sing in Syriac in 1951 and being based in Qamishli, she was also engaged in singing with the likes of Habib Mousa. Her songs spanned both liturgical and folk songs (lyrically she only sang patriotic songs), but we find that most folkloric musical work of Syriac and Assyrian women comes from Iraq, Lebanon or the diaspora. This was the case of Juliana Jendo (1956), whose origins cross the borders between several regions: Her grandparents were from Nineveh in Iraq, but her parents settled in Tell Tamer and then Hassake in Jazeera, the Northeast of Syria. Like many of the Syriac and Assyrian legends, Jendo’s family ended up leaving Syria and settled in Chicago in the 1980s. In an interview with Rhona Nazanin of the Assyrian podcast Jendo spoke of her religious Christian upbringing going to a French convent school as Syria was under French colonial rule at the time. Her first public appearance came at a school performance at the age of twelve, which was televised and brought her to the attention of musicians and lyricists who wanted to work with her. The conservative nature of the Assyrian community meant that women were not encouraged to pursue singing as a “respectable” career and Jendo had to garner the backing of her father, to enable her to perform publicly. Her first album Mardita (1987) was recorded on tape, and Jendo recalls how she took the tape recording to the local Assyrian radio station in Chicago who broadcast it, and it became an instant hit within the community. Her performances became sought after at community events, weddings, New Year and Christmas parties, where she brought the community together. Her extensive travels in the States, but also Europe, meant that she moved between different Assyrian communities, and once she arrived in Europe, she noticed the difference between the Syriac and Assyrian dialects. She decided to deepen her knowledge in Syriac and Assyrian, and when Homs born Assyrian filmmaker, producer and lyricist John Homeh called her and asked her to act in the first Syriac language film “Wardeh Deesheh” (Trampled Flowers) she agreed. The 1991 independent romantic-drama film included songs and comedy and became the most successful Assyrian film. The film features George Homeh in the role of Nineb, and Juliana Jendo in the dual role of Nineveh and Nina. Tackling gender roles, rape, the eternal yearning for homeland and the battle for progressivity in the diaspora. Songs from the film were released independently on a tape in 1993 and were distributed across the diaspora. The ease of copying cassettes meant that when one copy made it to a “studio” many further copies could be made quickly and easily. The ease of dissemination, relatively low cost and small size of cassettes during the pre-digital times made cassettes an important medium in preserving cultural heritage of many communities around the world, while ensuring that everyone remained connected. When Jendo was working on her second “tape” album called "Khatar Aynatoukh", composed by Edward Musa she recalls that “Those songs became hits. I wasn’t there in Iraq, but people would call me and say that the tape was being played on buses.” Jendo also managed to put together a children’s album, in a unique project creating nursery rhymes and songs in Assyrian titled Flower of Assyria. “At the time there were no songs for children,” recalls Jendo. “I remember being so happy to be able to sing Happy birthday in my own language” remarks podcast host Rhoda Nazanin, who echoes the need of a whole community to make their language more accessible and relatable through music. From community centres to radio stations, to cars, buses and small cassette “studios” the rise of the cassette from 1963 to the 1990s meant that the cassette was the carrier of songs, voices and music, maintaining connections between divided and distant geographies and diasporas. One can safely argue that from the period between the 1960s and 1990s the cassette, and in this case the Syriac/ Assyrian cassette, was the main medium of sound reproduction and communication preserving language, culture and sentiments of a population whose desire to express themselves stretched on tape, across continents. * There is a distinction between eastern and western Assyrians. This piece will mostly talk about western Assyrians (Syriacs). For the purposes of this piece, I will use the overarching/unifying word Assyrians/Syriacs. References: • Asaad, Gabriel (1990). Syrian Music Through History الموسيقى السورية عبر التاريخ • Asaad, Oweis. Personal interview with the author. .أسعد، سردانابال (٢٠٢٣). تاريخ الموسيقى السريانية. المدرسة السريانية الالكترونية • Hazboun, Christina (2022). Syriac Christmas Hymns and Chants feat. Gabriel Aydin. Musical Musings. • Jarjour, Tala (2018). Sense And Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo. Oxford University Press. • Nazanin, Rhodah (2020). Juliana Jendo. The Assyrian Podcast. Tuesday Sep 22, 2020. • Qeenatha website • Zeitoune, Abboud (2015). Modern Asasyrian Music. Germany. • Zeitoune, Abboud. Personal interview with the author via Zoom.